Bruce Campbell says ‘Evil Dead’ franchise is dead to him

By Cary Darling / STAFF WRITER
| on
September 10, 2018

Photo: Maarten De Boer

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Actor Bruce Campbell of "Ash vs Evil Dead" poses for a portrait at Getty Images Portrait Studio powered by Samsung Galaxy at Comic-Con International 2015 at Hard Rock Hotel San Diego on July 10, 2015 in SanActor Bruce Campbell of "Ash vs Evil Dead" poses for a portrait at Getty Images Portrait Studio powered by Samsung Galaxy at Comic-Con International 2015 at Hard Rock Hotel San Diego on July 10, 2015 in San Diego, California.

Actor Bruce Campbell of "Ash vs Evil Dead" poses for a portrait at Getty Images Portrait Studio powered by Samsung Galaxy at Comic-Con International 2015 at Hard Rock Hotel San Diego on July 10, 2015 in SanActor Bruce Campbell of "Ash vs Evil Dead" poses for a portrait at Getty Images Portrait Studio powered by Samsung Galaxy at Comic-Con International 2015 at Hard Rock Hotel San Diego on July 10, 2015 in San Diego, California

Photo: handout

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Bruce Campbell battles his former friend, now one of the EVIL DEAD in "EVIL DEAD II."

Reluctant time traveler Ash (Bruce Campbell) leads a makeshift army against evil forces in "Army of Darkness" ('92).

Photo: handout

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Bruce Campbell says 1987's Evil Dead II sold "for more than we made the movie for." The actor wrote If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor and self-parody humor novel Make Love* (*The Bruce Bruce Campbell says 1987's Evil Dead II sold "for more than we made the movie for." The actor wrote If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor and self-parody humor novel Make Love* (*The Bruce Campbell Way).

Bruce Campbell is best known as Ash, the wisecracking, chain-saw-wielding demon hunter in the phantasmagoric “Evil Dead” movies and the Starz spin-off TV series “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” which just ended its run after three seasons earlier this year.

“I’m done,” he said emphatically by phone from his home in rural southern Oregon, which — speaking of “burn notice” — just happened to be about five miles from a raging wildfire when we spoke in July. “Physically, emotionally, I’m spent. That’s it. These three seasons about did me in. I’m 60 now. I’m like, ‘You know what? Let’s quit before the dentures come out and the hearing aids and the walker. Let’s not be embarrassing.’ With all due to respect to our ‘Star Wars’ friends, they were pushing it.”

That the ratings were only modest made the decision to walk away from “Ash vs. Evil Dead” somewhat easier, though Campbell, an executive producer, notes that the show, which recently became available on Netflix and DVD, is finding a larger audience in noncable-TV formats.

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“We’re selling the show to 100 countries but it gets canceled because not enough are watching it on one platform,” he said. “But when it goes to another platform, it goes crazy. … You have to shake your head, and that’s why you can’t really get too crazy about it. … The film industry is changing about every two hours now.”

These days, Campbell is more inclined to pursue projects purely of his own creation, one of which is “Last Fan Standing,” a TV game-show version of a live pop-culture trivia concept he’s been touring around the country. “It’s a game show for geeks. How much does Thor’s hammer weigh? It’s ‘Game of Thrones.’ It’s ‘Star Wars.’ It’s horror, sci-fi and fantasy,” he said, and then referred to a veteran game-show host from the ’70s. “I’m in the Wink Martindale phase of my career. It’s time to put the chain saw down, put on the glasses and do a game show.”

He has lots of other ideas, too.

The conventional thing

Campbell says he’s moving into the third act of his life.

“Act one, you do everything. Act two, you’re selective. Act three, you only do the crap you want to do. My wife and I, she’s my partner in life and my business partner, we’ve developed probably a dozen projects between television and film. She looked at me the other day and said, ‘Dude, you’re getting old. You just turned 60. If you don’t start doing this stuff, when are you going to do it?’… I’ve worked for a lot of other people for a lot of years, and I’ve said a lot of dialogue that wasn’t written for me.”

In addition to trying to get his projects off the ground, he makes the occasional convention appearance, about three to six per year. He’s been making the convention rounds since 1988 and generally enjoys them.

“If it’s a dead convention and you’re the Maytag repairman waiting to sign something from little Billy, that’s when it can get grim. That’s when the whiskey comes out,” he said. “If it’s busy, fun, fun city and the weather’s good — no flooding in Houston or whatever — it’s different. And with Texas, it’s either on fire or under water, so we’ll see what we get.

“I’m very acerbic and my Q&A’s tend to be — there are insults hurled, there’s no question about it, but it’s in good fun,” he continued. “And thank God, these conventions have exploded. Back in ’88, there were probably three or four legitimate convention companies. Now, holy crap … . If I wanted, I could probably do 52 weekends a year at different conventions.

“In the old days, you’d see Adam West, Burt Ward and Lou Ferrigno, the guys from the TV shows from the ’70s and ’80s. Now, we want to meet Jeremy Renner, right now.”

Brisco’s back?

If Campbell never wants to see or hear from Ash again, the one role from his past he wouldn’t mind revisiting is that of Brisco County Jr., the cowboy hero of the ingenious but ill-fated “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.,” a critically adored science fiction-Western mash-up that aired for only one season on Fox in 1993.

“I would actually be willing to do a Brisco revisited,” he said. “(Show creator) Carlton Cuse (who would go on to produce “Lost”) and I have stayed in touch. … It’s armchair conversation but if there’s a healthy way to make these things work, it works. … If someone can go, ‘Here’s what you would do for a two-hour TV movie or six-hour limited series.’ But it has to make sense because, you know, ‘Brisco’ is 25-years-old.”

Meanwhile, the inferno continues to rage not far from Campbell’s home while we’re talking but, in true fashion for a man whose Ash character fought foes worse than fire, he’s not overly concerned. He’s been through this before; 20 acres on his property burned in 2012.

Judging from his Twitter feed, where he thanked local firefighters, everything turned out OK for him. “It’s sort of the hazards of living in the woods these days,” Campbell said during the interview. “I’m ready … I’ve got some acreage here and I’ve been thinning (it) every year for 15 years so if my place burns down, at least I tried. … We’ll be safe. We can see it coming.”